Exposing pro-Israel bias, propaganda, disinformation and spin in Australia's mainstream media. Monitoring pro-Israel influence in Australia's public and political arena.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Presumably...

Presumably, Bren Carlill, "policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council," thinks he can get away with peeing on our legs while telling us it's raining (New world in their hands: Palestinians must demonstrate they can establish a viable state before peace can come, The Australian, 13/9/08):

"Since the Palestine Liberation Organization's inception in 1964, 3 years before Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began, its objective wasto destroy the Zionist entity and replace it with a Palestinian state." Presumably, the PLO emerged out of thin air. Presumably, it could have no possible reason for replacing "the Zionist entity," aka Israel, with "a Palestinian state."

"By signing the Oslo accords, Arafat signalled a policy reversal." Presumably, PLO policy was set in stone from 1964 to 1993.

"But this didn't happen. The pro-Israel Palestinian Media Watch, established to examine what the Palestinian leadership said about Israel to Palestinians, raised the alarm. Conspiracy theories were rife: Israelis were said to have distributed poisoned lollies in front of Palestinian schools, spread HIV-AIDS in Palestinian society and so on." Presumably, "the Palestinian leadership" (presumably Arafat) turned Palestinians against Israel. Presumably, the mass expulsions of Palestinians in 1948, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the theft of Palestinian lands to make way for Israeli settlements, walls, roads, military bases and security zones, the daily murder and maiming of Palestinian civilians, their imprisonment and torture, the demolition of their homes, and the strangulation of their economy had nothing to do with it.

"Educational programs prepared Palestinians for a life instead of, not beside, Israel." Presumably, Israeli educational programs have been preparing Israeli citizens for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories for the past 41 years. Presumably, all those settlers who now live beside, around, in the midst of, or on top of, Palestinian towns and villages flunked Civics 101.

"Most shocking was the indoctrination of children. Instead of teaching ideals of peace, maps in schoolbooks omitted the word Israel. Summer camps for children were frequently named after Palestinian terrorists. Hatred of Jews was encouraged not rejected." Presumably, Israeli textbooks overflow with references to Palestine, clearly delineate the Green Line as Israel's border and do not refer to the occupied West Bank as Judea and Samaria. Presumably too, there are no monuments memorialising Israeli terrorists in Israel. The Menachem Begin Heritage Centre, for example, is a figment of the imagination. And presumably, hatred of Palestinians is not only discouraged, but punished - by sending the offenders to live among them, albeit in fortified playpens aka settlements, in the occupied West Bank.

"The settlement movement began in the late 1960s, after Israel's offer to return the occupied territories in exchange for peace had been rejected." Presumably, the following account, by Israeli historian Tom Segev, is a mere figment of the author's imagination: "Israel offered a withdrawal from Sinai and the Golan in return for direct negotiations for a peace treaty... Under the proposal... Israel would hang on to the Gaza Strip... [and] was also required to agree to a demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula... Syria was asked to give up the disputed territory along the border, which had, until the war, been a demilitarized zone. The Syrians would have also had to agree to demilitarization of the Golan Heights and to undertake not to obstruct the flow of the Jordan River sources into Israel. These proposed peace agreements with Egypt and Syria were mutually exclusive, but both countries were required to disregard Jordan: the offers... included not a single word about the future of the West Bank, or about Jerusalem and its residents." (1967, pp 500-501) " Presumably, a prototype of Barak's 'generous offer'.

"Back in Jewish hands for the first time in milleniums, the West Bank is the biblical heartland. From Amos to Zechariah, almost every personality in the Old Testament lived and operated in the area. [Careful, Bren, your Christian Zionism's showing.] Often religiously motivated, the settlers established communities near culturally significant sites or on the ruins of Jewish villages destroyed 19 years earlier in the 1948-49 war of independence." [Nice: the kibbutz is now a "village." How bucolic!] Presumably, Israeli settlements have God's backing, so they're kosher.

"Despite finding work in the settlements, Palestinians resented their presence." Funny that. Presumably, those about to be shot should be grateful for the grave they're forced to dig first.

"Adding to this resentment, Israeli security measures, enacted because of Palestinian terrorism, affected all Palestinians." Presumably, the Palestinians should have welcomed the Israeli occupation with flowers and handed over their keys and title deeds to the Holy Rollers from the west before hitting the road.